Traditionally, gaming systems with a dedicated console were standalone machines that accommodated a limited number of players (e.g., 2–4 players). Personal computer-based gaming grew in popularity in part due to the ability to play games online with many remote players over the Internet. Thus, one trend for dedicated gaming systems is to provide capabilities to facilitate gaming over a network, such Internet-based online gaming and LAN-based gaming where multiple consoles are connected through a local area network (LAN).
One challenge in network gaming is to protect network traffic between any two game consoles from tampering or observation by other devices on the network. Gamers are notorious for developing creative cheating mechanisms. For example, gamers have used computers to display portions of a game map which would otherwise not be visible, or modified unprotected network traffic to give themselves advantages during play, such as perfect aim, faster players, and so on. Unfortunately, previous console-based gaming systems did not provide for secure communications.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system architecture that supports secure communications between two or more gaming systems over a local area network.